A brief glimpse of inner struggle

Looking back at a practice that kept me alive

I don't talk about it much because I actually failed at it. But I did spend a great deal of my younger life trying to write songs and record them when possible. It wasn't until I was almost 40 that I had the time and money to build a small workstation at home and begin figuring it out. I laid it down in 2011 to tackle fiction at a higher level, but the urge never really goes away.

I attended a work training session this week on student development and it was said that feelings of hopelessness have doubled in the last 10 years, to the point where 67 percent of young women and more than half of young men say they feel hopeless or despondent in their life. I struggled with that greatly when I was that age, and if anything, I could probably shed some light on how to push on through and keep the embers lit.

I was raised in an era of shame, where you're "not supposed to talk about that", and it puts me at odds at times with the current mindset of coddling and soothing every fear and anxiety young people have these days. All I know is that I hope if you are struggling with such difficult issues you will remember that you are not alone and that life is beautiful if you just keep pushing on.

I compiled a fresh playlist of songs I've recorded in the past and collected them on my Soundcloud account. Below is a brief glimpse into what's behind each song. I'll finish tomorrow and continue to add the lyrics as I can.

Glow

This song came about as a result of learning the alternate B-flat tuning Billy Corgan used in Mayonnaise from Siamese Dream. The dreamy low-end of the tuning resonates fully providing a lush, almost creamy atmosphere for slower songs. All of these songs were written in my early to mid-20s, so alienation and missed opportunity permeate the lyrics. I was just blessed to be born with innate lyrical rhythms pulsating in my head since childhood. I especially like the slant rhymes and inner rhyme scheme present in these lyrics. Looking back on that time from my early 50s, I'm glad I fought through this period, as painful as it was, with an underlying sense of hope, an idea that something better waits if I can just keep moving on. Just keep the embers warm in case the time to catch fire comes about. In other words, to glow.

Eau Claire

After learning the basics of orchestra (barre) chords, I began just moving the shapes around the neck, searching for something new, something fresh. I took a basic Dmaj7 and slid it up two spots to Emaj7, albeit in a weird spot that normally wouldn't be the best way to play. Something about the back and forth stuck with me and I developed the main groove to the verses. The thing about this song is that I wrote the first verse and it remained a ditty for 15 years until working on my 94 Songs project. I knew I wanted to include it in that collection. The song is about a woman I knew named Claire, who was my good friend when I was 21/22-ish. You'll have to wait for the novel to get the back story, but it was definitely the sweetest of unrequited loves. This is one of four tracks I recorded in my friend Eddie's studio. My buddy at the time Dylan lays down the drum work.

Same Dream

One of my favorites. The first song I wrote after leaving college at 22 to try and become a songwriter. It didn't work out, it was a tough period for me and who wants to relive all that? Haha. Not me. I had the basic chords and lyrics quickly but it remained in that state for 15 years. The thing for me here, as the artist, is the guitar lead, which I would not have been able to pull off when I first wrote the song. It was my good friend and mentor Phil who helped me grow in fret work, double picking and string skipping. The night I recorded this lead work it was a Friday and my son was asleep and my wife watching tv. I labored in my office/studio space with an Ibanez SG knockoff plugged into a Digitech effects unit and headphones. I played this over and over, developing the idea, until parts stuck. Once I had the shapes in mind, I literally played it 20 times like you hear about, and dialed it in. What came out in the end was this Mixolydian run from the bottom of the neck, skipping strings and notes as I bounce to the higher end and take off. I don't know if I could replicate it. I was proud of this one. I could not dial in the bass groove, so to me it's not in the pocket, but the idea was to get these songs down no matter the cost.

Beulaville

There are people in this life that stand out for their goodness and kindness and when I was 23 I didn't know if I would make it to 25. It was bad. Then the fates sent Jason in to my life, literally I think, to keep me alive. Again, wait for the novel for the full story, but Jason supported the bridge that helped me get from trauma to adulthood. Just barely. Anyway, I wrote this as a joke when we were driving back from the beach in his Ford Ranger. I was in the back crew seat, uncomfortable as it was, and facing a four hour drive back home. We had just got on the highway and Jason asked me to write a song on the drive home. We passed the sign for Beulaville, which I had never heard of, and off I went. I was deep into Snoop Dog and Q-Tip and so I wrote a rap about living in Beulaville, North Carolina in the year of our lord 1998. So there are references to hurricanes, Bill Clinton, superconductors and good ol' Red. RIP buddy.

So the acoustic guitar chords are based on the first chord in Usher's Nice and Slow, a 5th position jazz chord. I was trying to learn that song, but didn't get far because of the complicated structure. I learned the one chord and wrote my own song. Years later I had an AdrenaLinn effects box and that's what drives the modulated electric guitar. The musical break is supposed to represent a hurrican coming on shore and so yes it is loud and maybe annoying but I like it.

Covered Everything

So Jason decided to fucking move away and I had just gotten out of jail and my life was for shit. Fun times, eh? What was I to do except ... fall in love with his sister! HaHa. She knows. And she was extra kind about it. We became fast, fast friends and as inseperable as Jason and I were for three years. It took a few months, but sure enough the Libra in me fell in love with her. It was uncomfortable. When I took to expressing it, she was kind but firm in telling me "nah" and it did hurt me, but only in the way that I knew I was addicted to the feeling of unrequited love and didn't know anything different.
When it got super weird, Laura told me maybe we need to not hang out for a while. Turns out, she was a Libra too (we called ourselves the Libra Twins, like Wondertwins from Super Friends) and probably understood more than others how my mind words. We chilled for about a week and then she called me and we talked and luckily I was smart enough by then to know how not to trash a friendship over selfishness. I wrote this song the week we didn't roll with each other. Again, the lyrics are "I'm fucked up and life sucks but I have all this energy and power so I'm not stopping .." Moonbeams, photons, the Silver Surfer. What's not to like. Also, I consider this the guitar solo that aligns the planets. Just kidding. I'm copying David Gilmour from Echoes. I do like the lyrics on this one. I use the AdrenaLinn in a more muted fashion here, trying to give a shimmer a la Helpless by CSNY panned hard to one side.

Randy Said

I included this one because, for my skill level and quality of equipment, it was a stretch to pull it all together. I watched this Gulf War veteran on CSPAN one afternoon in 1993. He had Gulf War Syndrome. He couldn't really talk, so his parents read his statement. When asked why he thought the government and military wanted to deny the existence of GWS, he leaned into the mike and muttered "Greed". It was powerful. His name was Randy. I'll never forget it. I used a descending chord pattern here on the high end of the neck. I believe it's somewhere in the key of D but  don't really know. That became a problem in terms of playing a bass line. I ended up sticking with the root note of each chord and developing ideas from there. I feel like it's close, but not exactly in the pocket. For the bridge, I started in Cmin7 and developed some open chords based off the same barre position (4th fret) and open strings in the same pattern. "Mahatma said ahimsa" was supposed to be the up front lyric in the bridge, but I could not sing it to my satisfaction, so I decided to put it in the background with modulation. I think that worked out well. It was a Brian Eno Oblique Strategy. I used a Miami R&B drum loop. I was fascinated with the idea of blending traditional singer-songwriter concepts with hip hop and R&B sounds just to see what would happen. I was two years ahead of the curve, but such is life.